


they also serve

by synecdochic



Series: take these broken wings [3]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Academia, Archaeology, Imported, POV Outsider, Those Left Behind, Waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-24
Updated: 2008-05-24
Packaged: 2018-05-30 09:54:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6419185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synecdochic/pseuds/synecdochic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>When I consider how my light is spent</em><br/><em>Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,</em><br/><em>And that one Talent which is death to hide</em><br/><em>Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent</em><br/><em>To serve therewith my Maker, and present</em><br/><em>My true account, lest He returning chide,</em><br/><em>"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"</em><br/><em>I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent</em><br/><em>That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need</em><br/><em>Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best</em><br/><em>Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state</em><br/><em>Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,</em><br/><em>And post o'er land and ocean without rest;</em><br/><em>They also serve who only stand and wait."</em><br/><br/>Another interlude that takes place between <em>This Town is a Song About You</em> and <em>A Howling in the Factory Yard</em>: Cameron waits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they also serve

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally [posted](https://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/217962.html) 2008-05-24.)
> 
> So, the process of writing _Howling_ nearly killed me (you guys, the first draft was _so bad_ and ivorygates fixed so much) and I was _exploding_ to share it but draft #3 (or thereabouts, I'd lost track) still needed more work. So, since I have a tremendous fondness for outsider point of view, I posted this.
> 
> It's concommitant with _Howling_ , but contains no spoilers for it.

Theodosia Paraskevi had fallen a little bit in love with Dr. DeSaussure on their first advising meeting, when he picked up her file, flipped it open, took one look at her name, looked up, grinned, and said, "Named after the saint or the empress?" 

"The saint," she'd said, neat and clipped, ignoring the wrench in her gut; "my parents are -- religious." 

And he'd _looked_ at her, and pursed his lips, and nodded, seeming to see through to all the things she wasn't saying, and not once in the five years since that moment has he said a single word about her family. 

She's not sure how she's managed to stay on as his graduate student and teaching assistant for so long -- she knows all the gossip by now, after five years, all the stories about how, sure, he's cheerful and sweet and kind and lovely to work with _as long as you don't fuck up_ \-- but she has, and she knows she's lucky. What the man doesn't know about the field of Near East archaeology isn't worth knowing. He's pulled strings and opened doors for her, gotten her on digs she wouldn't have qualified for in a million years -- okay, _sure_ , as chief cook and bottle washer, but _still_ \-- in Kuwait and Syria and Turkey. He knows _everyone_ in the field, or at least sometimes it feels like everyone, and he's more than willing to bring her along when he travels for lectures and events and introduce her. (Or not introduce her. She still remembers being at a reception at the Oriental Institute and only realizing _after_ she'd walked away that she'd been arguing Hittite morphology with _Harry Hoffner himself_ , and she'd nearly died of mortification until Dr. DeSaussure had assured her that she'd held her own admirably.) 

She's been to his house for the end-of-semester grad-student parties -- good pizza and better beer than any one of the doctoral candidates could have afforded on their own and the traditional mocking of the Indiana Jones trilogy. (" _Provenance_ , Dr. Jones!" "Do you have a _permit_ for that dig?" "You're _never_ getting tenure at _this_ rate." And, her favorite, Kay-Beth's quip after they'd all had a _very_ bad semester: "Let me see: undergrads or Nazis ... yeah, I don't blame him.") She'd been worried, at first, about the appearance of impropriety -- archaeology isn't as much of a no-girls-allowed club as it had been, once upon a time, but it would do her no good to gain a reputation -- but he'd never been anything but a perfect gentleman, and nobody, _nobody_ on campus had ever breathed a _word_ of gossip, even after the two or three times she and Carlos, the two little-lost-lambs of the department, had followed him back East to his family's home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. (Carlos's parents died, three years before he'd entered graduate study, a set of bad brakes on a rainy night; _she_ just hasn't spoken to her parents, or more precisely her parents haven't spoken to _her_ , since the night when she'd unwisely chosen to tell them that they could stop trying to set her up with children-of-friends unless said children lacked a Y chromosome.) The fact that nobody gossips about Dr. DeSassure is sign enough of how highly he's esteemed; it had taken her _two years_ to figure out that he's probably gay.

Probably. She's still not sure.

He's the only person who calls her Theodosia; everyone else calls her Theo. She's the only person who calls him Dr. Dee; she bought him a book on astrology for Christmas, her second year of study, and he'd laughed and _laughed_ until Dr. Franklin had come to see what the joke was. When she finally finishes her dissertation, gets awarded her Ph.D. and moves on to teach somewhere (in a job she _knows_ he will move heaven and earth to get her, though she doesn't know where or when yet), she knows her greatest personal achievement of her time spent with the department will not be a well-received paper or a well-attended lecture or even that time she managed to get Bobby Hansen to stop killing his brain cells with every drug known to man and actually _pay attention_ long enough to learn something in her section of Intro to Classical Archaeology. No, her greatest achievement is going to be the fact that Dr. Dee appointed her commander of the defending archery units this time around for the re-enactment of the Siege of Dapur, and this time, the Hittites _won_.

Yeah, _fuck_ Harvard. Harvard is _way_ too stuffy for live-action roleplaying. Besides. It's cold up there.

She's just back from six months at Tell Hamoukar in Syria (and she _knows_ that what they've uncovered about ancient warfare and settlement patterns is going to _make_ her dissertation, and she _knows_ who's responsible for getting her on that dig, and she owes him a whole _case_ of his favorite Scotch) and her first stop, once she sleeps off the jet lag, sorts through her mail, and gets back on campus, is the Archaeology corner of the Anthropology department. She's been back in contact with campus precisely twice in six months, thanks to time differences and the hassle of paying for time on the satphone, but she knows the spring semester starts tomorrow (always on a Tuesday; Monday is for them to brace themselves) and she's pretty sure Dr. Dee is going to be doing his usual obsessive day-before-the-hordes-descend full-day office hours. She stops off at the mail room first -- Ken, the department secretary, promised last spring to hold all her mail for her while she was gone and return it as soon as she got back, and sure enough, there's a large cardboard box labeled 'Theo' sitting next to her mailbox. 

Her course schedule is, thank God, exactly how she arranged it (on one of those two satellite calls), and the Registrar, for once, did _not_ screw up and put her down for the wrong section of Topics in Pre-Modern History (she's co-teaching that one with Dr. Dee this semester; she's pretty sure he'll make her do most of the lecturing). She's just eyeballing the cardboard box and debating leaving it for later when Carlos ducks his head in and makes happy noises. "Theo! I thought you weren't back on campus until tomorrow!"

"No, I got in two days ago," she says. "After you-don't-want-to- _know_ how much travel time. I wanted to get back sooner, but you wouldn't believe what you have to go through to get into and out of the area we were working in."

Carlos nods, reaching past her to grab his mail out of his mailbox. "I can, yeah. We've been watching the news alerts for that whole region. Dr. DeSassure has been freaking out about you being safe, especially with --"

He shuts his mouth, quickly, and Theo can feel a little stomach-flutter. "What?" she says. "What happened?" 

Carlos tosses a look over his shoulder. "C'mon, let me help you get your stuff back to your office," he says, and she recognizes it as a warning: _not here_. Usually she'd insist on carrying her things herself, but this time she steps back and lets Carlos manhandle the _giant cardboard box_ up onto his shoulder (he grunts; there's probably evaluation textbooks in there). The graduate student offices are practically the size of _broom closets_ , and they're packed in two to an office, but at least they _have_ offices; some departments get nothing but cube farms (and that's if they're lucky). Kay-Beth, whom Theo shares the office with, is nowhere to be seen when Theo unlocks the door, but there's a Ziploc baggie of Kay-Beth's famous double-fudge brownies on Theo's side of the desk, tied with ribbon.

"Home sweet home," Theo says. "Just drop that anywhere. And then tell me what I missed."

Carlos puts the box down and -- since Kay-Beth's desk chair is covered in papers and textbooks and God knows what else -- sits on top of it; they're all used to making their own furniture. "Go easy on the Doc, okay? His nephew was KIA in Iraq this summer."

"Oh, _hell_ ," Theo says. They'd been no more than a few miles from the Iraq border; they could hear the helicopters, some nights, and she'd been terrified at first. But the camp supervisors had assured them they were perfectly safe, and as time went on, she'd started to believe it; certainly the Syrian government had given them plenty of protection. By the end of her time on-site, she'd started to forget there was a war going on mere miles away. "Which one?" She'd met some of Dr. Dee's family. Not all of them. Some of them didn't tend to make it home for the holidays very often.

Carlos shakes his head. "I can't remember exactly. Sister's youngest son, I think." Theo tries to remember names, faces, but most of Dr. Dee's clan (and clan is the right word for it) is a blur; she shakes her head. "Anyway, it seems to have kicked off a whole hell of a lot of crap, and the Doc's been taking time right and left to get things squared away. And apparently things were _just_ getting settled down when _something_ happened over Christmas, because there've been guys in uniform crawling _all over_ campus since he came back from Christmas break and questioning, like, _everybody_."

Theo frowns. "About _what_?"

Carlos spreads his hands. "Dunno, man. How long have we known the Doc, how often have we been back to his house, whether we've ever met whatsisname, the nephew who moved down here last spring. Whether we met whatsisname's partner, whether we ever overheard the Doc on the phone with whatsisname or the partner --"

"Cameron," Dr. Dee says, from the doorway, and both Theo and Carlos jump. Dr. Dee comes into the office, and -- he's holding a _baby_ up against his shoulder; _that_ makes Theo blink. The addition of a third person into the space turns the room from "mildly cramped" to "absolutely packed". "Not 'whatsisname'. Theodosia, it's good to see you. No trouble getting back, I assume?"

Theo gapes at him for a long minute before she kicks herself and tells herself to get a grip. "No," she says. "Um. Dr. Gibson says you still owe him a rematch, Dr. Reichel says to tell you that he's _still_ waiting for that hundred bucks you owe him, and Professor al Kuntar says to tell you she still thinks you're full of something that nice girls like her and I aren't supposed to know the Arabic words for."

"Yes, well," Dr. Dee says. "I do hope you told her that I'd hardly send you off into the wide world without equipping you with the proper vocabulary."

"Yeah," Theo says. She can't help staring at the baby; he looks like he (he? She decides, after a minute, that the masculine pronoun is appropriate; he's wearing yellow, but she's _pretty_ sure he's a boy) can't be much more than a few months old. Dr. Dee's holding him like an old hand at baby-wrangling, which probably isn't far from the truth, knowing what Theo knows about the family. "I, um. I'm sorry about your nephew."

Dr. Dee's face grows still for a minute. "Ashton," he says, quietly. "Sassy's youngest. And thank you." The baby in his arms chooses that minute to burp, or maybe to hiccup, and the Doc sighs a little and pats the back of the baby's head. "And this young man is his son, Ashton James, known to all and sundry as AJ when he's behaving and 'the mouth' when he's not. I have a horribly intrusive favor to ask you, Theodosia."

She can tell what he's going to ask; she reaches out her arms. "Go on," she says, with only a _little_ sigh. (Oldest of seven, and she can't _remember_ ever coming out and telling him, but she's pretty sure that she vaguely remembers a drunken incident in the den, that first Thanksgiving she spent with his family, sobbing on his shoulder about how much she misses her own. He'd never brought it up again; she can't tell if it's an actual memory or just her mind playing tricks on her.) The baby's warm in her arms as Dr. Dee makes the transfer; he smells, rather decisively, of baby powder, and for a second Theo realizes how much she misses having kids around. Then, as soon as the Doc pulls his arms away, AJ opens his eyes, blinks twice, focuses on her, and lets loose with a wail that can probably be heard over in the _law building_. 

"Well," Carlos says, over the piercing shriek. "I can see how he got his name."

Theo transfers her grip so that AJ's held more firmly, bounces gently up and down to rock him. The kid doesn't shut up. "Please tell me you only want me to watch him for the afternoon," she says.

Dr. Dee looks shocked. "Oh, not even. Cameron was supposed to be back from his physical therapy appointment already, and I have a meeting with the chairman in five minutes, and --" He winces as AJ redoubles his efforts to deafen everyone. Theo bounces a little more firmly. "--I don't think this would be precisely conducive to a reasonable discussion. Although it would certainly mean a short meeting. I should be back shortly. If Cameron shows up before I make my escape, tell him that while I am sympathetic to the needs of the single parent, if he doesn't find a daycare with openings soon, I'm going to start spiking the kid's bottles with Scotch. And if Cameron _doesn't_ show up, might I suggest taking my adorable and charming great-nephew over to visit Dr. Margolin in Classics, who beat us out for that new library space we were warring over when last you saw us. I'll be back soon, at which point you can tell me all the stories of what you found. And hopefully give me good blackmail material on _someone_." 

He turns around, lets himself out of the office. Then sticks his head back in. "Oh, and Theodosia?"

Theo's already trying the old blow-in-the-baby's-face trick to quiet AJ. She looks up. "Yeah, Dr. Dee?"

He smiles at her. It's only a _bit_ weary. "Welcome back. I won't say the semester can only get better from here, but I'm thinking it very loudly." 

"Well," Carlos says, as AJ -- thankfully -- begins to settle down. A little. Down to a _dull_ roar, at least. "That's interesting."

Theo's pre-occupied. "Hmm?" 

Carlos is eyeing the door that Dr. Dee just ducked out of (and if he's been dealing with the screaming baby all day, well, Theo doesn't blame him for beating a hasty retreat, even if babysitting -- at least, babysitting anyone who isn't old enough to vote; undergraduates don't count -- isn't _usually_ a graduate student's job). "He said single parent."

Between the blowing-in-the-face trick and the bouncing -- along with a side helping of proffering a finger for AJ to grab onto and consider sticking in his mouth -- Theo's almost managed to get the noise explosion under control; he's still crying, but at least it's no longer a _screech_. " _So_?" she asks.

"So," Carlos says. "The jackbooted thugs kept circling around asking us about whatsisname's _partner_."

Theo is sleep-deprived and jetlagged and suffering from _just a bit_ of culture shock (Syria to Texas in three days is just a _bit_ more than she should have tried; she wishes she'd taken _last_ week's flight), so she's a little more snappish than she should be. "Mary, Mother of God, Carlos, does it _matter_? It's none of our business. If Dr. Dee wanted us to know anything about his personal life, he'd _tell_ us."

"Hmpf," Carlos says. "It's just ... weird."

"Just something that you think you need to pry your nose into," Theo shoots back. "Leave him alone. I mean it. Or I'll tell everyone about _you_ and that night you --"

Carlos holds up his hand. "Okay, okay. Lips. Zipped. Really." He mimes locking his lips, throwing away the key. "I just wanted you to know that now you're back, the guys in the uniforms will probably be back _too_ , since everyone was sure to tell them you're the Doc's right-hand girl."

Theo sighs. "Great." In her arms, AJ whimpers again and bangs one fist against her shoulder; she reaches down absently and catches his chubby baby fist before he can get a rhythm going. "You," she says, down to him, "should get started on opera lessons soon. You'd make millions."

"We were thinking of just renting him out as a hurricane siren," comes the voice from the door. Theo looks up: a man who is no longer 'young' but not yet 'old', brown hair, blue eyes, lived-in face. Leaning on a cane. She's met Dr. Dee's nephew once, at a party last spring; she'd remember him from the way he looks like a younger, broader version of the Doc even if she didn't recognize him from remembering the fact that he's mobility-impaired. He looks tired, around the eyes and the mouth, and he's moving slowly, like he's in pain. "Followed the sound of the screaming," he says, nodding at the baby. "Take it I didn't make it back here before Uncle Al had to go to his meeting."

The sound of the nephew's -- Cameron's -- voice makes AJ stop and look around; he wiggles in Theo's arms, and Theo tightens her grip. "He threatened Scotch unless you found a daycare," she says. 

Cameron sighs. "Bet he did. Pretty sure he's regretting sayin' he'd babysit through my appointments." He ducks his head, looks up at her through lowered lashes. "Don't suppose you're lookin' to pick up some extra cash, are you? Three times a week, two hours or so, I'll pay for the earplugs?"

She's about to say no -- she's not _technically_ supposed to be actually writing her dissertation this semester, not and teaching at the same time, but she'd wanted to get a head start and maybe save herself a semester of her writing year if she could, and adding babysitting on top of that would be a bad idea -- but the man looks _wiped_ ; if he really is trying to take care of a baby all by himself, over and above whatever it is he does for a living (she seems to remember something about computers), he could use all the help he could get. And Dr. Dee, despite knowing what he's _doing_ with kids, doesn't (she thinks) actually _like_ them -- not until they're old enough to hold and defend an intellectual position, at least -- which means that if Cameron's planning for him to be helping, Dr. Dee is going to be in a _really bad mood_ for the rest of the semester. And nobody likes it when Dr. Dee is in a bad mood. 

And, well. She misses having kids around. And her biological clock is starting to get a little more urgent.

Still, she doesn't want to commit. "Maybe," she temporizes. "Let me give you my card --"

Both hands are full of squirming baby, though, and the cards are locked in her file cabinet. Cameron solves the problem by making his way over to the side of the desk, leaning his cane against the bookshelf, taking down the backpack he's wearing, and fishing out some kind of sling, fitting it around his neck and shoulders so that it drapes down his chest. "Here," he says, and holds out his hands. "C'mere, Mouth. Let the nice lady have her hands back. Best behavior, kiddo. She might be the person who keeps me from drowning you in the bathtub."

Theo surrenders the baby, carefully, making sure to support his head through the transfer. AJ gurgles and then falls silent as Cameron fits him into the sling on his chest. Her arms feel a bit empty without the baby in them; she stops herself from sighing wistfully. "He's a beautiful baby," she says. 

Cameron's busy getting all the straps arranged just so. "My brother's youngest," he says. There's an overwhelming sadness there, and Theo draws some family lines in her head and realizes that Dr. Dee's nephew, the one killed in Iraq, must be Cameron's brother. She's pretty sure that the brother is -- was -- married, though, and she's not sure how the baby wound up here. Still, like she said to Carlos, it's none of her business. 

Cameron doesn't seem to be quite as close-mouthed about his personal business as Dr. Dee is, though, because he keeps talking. "His momma's not doin' so hot, though, and when I had to come back down here for -- well, for personal reasons -- I offered to bring him with me, since they got seven others in the house all told and the Mouth here is worth as much effort as all the rest of them combined. Didn't stop to think that meant I was saddling myself with all the hard work." He gives her a weary smile, but it doesn't seem to touch his eyes. She wonders what it is she's seeing there, but she's too polite to ask. "Also slipped my mind that Uncle Al would always rather hide in the den with a cigar and the card game than deal with the demon children. So here we are. I really was serious about the babysitting gig, you know. Waiting list on all the daycares I'd be willing to trust him to is at least six months long."

"And you're willing to trust me?" Theo blurts out. Then kicks herself, because -- really, it's not as though she's _untrustworthy_ , not the way she just made herself sound. But still --

Cameron shrugs. "Sure," he says, simply. "Uncle Al trusts you enough to hand over the kid while he goes running off to his meeting, I trust you enough to watch the kid a couple times a week. If you're up for it, I mean. I'll include combat pay."

Theo bites her lip. "I -- We'll see. You can email me about when you'd need me, and I'll see if I can fit it into my schedule." She unlocks her desk drawer, fishes out a business card. "Here. My email address is on here."

With the baby in the sling on his chest, Cameron has a hand free, even though he's picked up his cane again. He limps over to take the card from her -- she wonders, idly, how he got hurt, and whether it's an injury or something degenerative -- and shoves it in the back pocket of his jeans after flicking his eyes down to read it quickly. "Theo," he says. "Well, Theo, I'm Cam, and you've already met the devil incarnate here, and --" He turns to Carlos. "Sorry, didn't catch your name."

"Carlos," Carlos says. A little snippier than Theo was expecting, and he doesn't get up to offer his hand, which startles her. "Paleoanthropology." 

Cameron -- Cam -- nods his head. "Nice to meet you," he says. "Both of you. An' thanks for taking care of the hurricane siren for me. I gotta run, but when Uncle Al comes back, can you tell him to actually check his voice mail this time? Left him a message three days ago and I don't think he's listened to it yet." He smiles again. "Which I'm sure you're familiar with. C'mon, kiddo, we're off to see the races."

Theo watches him re-apportion himself -- backpack, babysack, baby, cane -- and limp slowly out of the office. She can hear the baby gurgling, all the way down the hallway, drifting away into quiet. One she's pretty sure Cam's out of earshot, she turns to Carlos. "What the _hell_?" she demands.

Carlos shrugs and gets up. "What?"

"You," Theo says. "I've never seen you be that rude to someone. He was perfectly nice to _you_."

"Yeah," Carlos says. "But _you_ haven't had the goddamn government poking its nose into everything of _yours_ yet. Come back to me once you have, and tell me it's not annoying and intrusive and really fucking creepy. And whatever it is, smart money right now says it's that guy's fault. You're crazy if you take him up on that babysitting job, you know."

Theo sighs. "Yeah," she says. "I guess."

She looks at the door to the office, though, and thinks about that poor kid. And then she sighs again, and turns on her computer, and tries to remember her goddamn email password.

What with one thing and another -- getting her gear unpacked, trying to remember how _not_ to kill Stephen (her roommate, and a nice enough guy, but he can get under her skin like nobody's business and he'd liked the exchange student who'd been subletting while Theo was out of town much better than he likes Theo herself), arranging her coursework, and the whirlwind of a new semester -- Theo doesn't notice that Cam doesn't email her for another two weeks. When the email comes through, it's a straight-up proposal, clear and concise. (And well-spelled and well-punctuated, which is a refreshing change these days.) He'll pay her ... a rather ridiculous sum of money, all told, in exchange for six hours a week of babysitting (with options for the occasional additional appointment, at going rate, scheduled in advance). 

In the end, it's the simple and heartfelt "please" at the end of the email that makes her get up and cross the hallway to knock on Dr. Dee's door.

The office doors have windows, but Dr. Dee has had his papered over for as long as she can remember (he says that otherwise he feels too much like a monkey at the zoo). His door's closed, but she knows he's in there; she can see the light underneath the doorcrack. She lifts her hand to knock, and pauses when she hears his voice, raised in anger. It isn't that she's never heard him yell at someone before -- sometimes even her -- but this time is different; this doesn't sound like he's having an academic debate. It sounds personal. 

"--telling you," he's saying. "He's fine. I don't care _if_ the brat up and left him --"

His accent's thicker than Theo's ever heard it before, too. She knows he did his graduate work at Chicago and his post-doc at Michigan before settling down here; all the moving around left him with a mishmash of regionalisms, and although she can always _hear_ bits of Carolina drawl in his voice (it's different than Texas, softer and more lyrical) it's rarely _obvious_. But it's out in full force now. There's a pause, while whomever is on the other end of the phone argues at him, and whatever it is makes him quiet down a bit; she can't hear anything more of his response than "--tried to--" and "--baby--" and "--back home for a while". Then there's quiet again.

She looks around herself to make sure nobody is in the hallway to see her eavesdropping, but she doesn't wander off. She's a little disappointed in herself, but -- she _is_ curious. 

Finally, when the low mutter of voice from the other side of the door is quiet, and she thinks he might have hung up, she knocks. There's a pause, and she wonders if he is actually still on the phone, but after a second, he calls, "Come in."

Theo opens the door and pokes her head in. "Got a second?" she asks. 

He's sitting at his desk -- _he_ gets a bigger office than she does, and he doesn't have to share it with anyone, but it's just as cramped as hers is anyway; he has room for more books, so of course he _has_ more books, piled everywhere -- and staring off into space, but he smiles when he sees it's her. Tired smile, but smile anyway. "For you, yes," he says. "Clear off a seat."

She doesn't, though; she just leans against the filing cabinet nearest the door. "I, uh, wanted to ask you something," she says, and then kicks herself, because she's been trying to train herself out of the habit of wandering around the point of the conversation for five minutes before actually getting to it; it's a bad habit to let herself keep up. "Your nephew emailed me and asked me if I'd like to babysit for him, and I -- uh --"

She's trying to find a diplomatic way to say _I'd really like to know what I'd be getting into, and whether or not I should run far away instead of saying yes_ , in a way that won't either insult his family or get too personal. But as she watches, his shoulders slump a little -- relief, maybe? -- and he nods. "Good," he says. "Been telling the boy to get off his ass and email you. Don't feel like you have to, or like I'm asking you to. But I know you were living on ramen noodles last year even _before_ you drained the last of your savings to cover the cost of storing your stuff over the summer, and I also know how much that dig _didn't_ pay you. Rather you took something like this, instead of killing yourself waiting tables or something."

"Hey, I'm a good waitress," she says. "And I'm getting a Ph.D. in the liberal arts. I need the practice."

She's hoping to make him smile -- actually smile, not one of his automatic put-the-other-person-at-ease smiles -- but it doesn't work. He does nod again, though. "And Cameron could use the help. Boy's more stubborn than his momma, and that's saying something. He's been trying to do this all on his own." 

"That's what I wanted to ask you about," Theo says, feeling like she's greatly daring. "I don't want to pry, Doctor Dee --"

"Please," Dr. Dee interrupts. "If you're going to pry -- and the only time someone says they don't want to pry is when they want nothing more -- it's 'Al'." He waves a hand at the visitor's chair. "And sit. You're perching like a pterodactyl."

Theo bites her lip, and then moves the papers off the visitor's chair and sits down on it. "I _know_ it's none of my business and I really don't want to pry, really, I'm not just saying that, but Carlos said that there've been people asking questions and I know that your nephew moved down here with his partner but you and he have been talking like it's just him now, and Carlos said that the people who were asking questions were going to come back and want to talk to _me_ about _them_ , your nephew and his partner I mean, and -- I want to help, really I do, and you're right, I could use the money, but I don't want to get all caught up in something that's going to cause trouble later and I'd kind of like to know what's going on," she says, all in one big rush. She can feel her cheeks flushing, and she's grateful that her Mediterranean coloring makes it less visible. "I mean. If I take the job."

She's confessed her personal business to Dr. Dee any number of times in the past five years, and he's always been willing to listen -- listen well, listen _thoughtfully_ , offer her suggestions and guidance as much or as little as she wants him to; he was the one who strongly hinted that she should break up with Janine, and if she'd just listened to him six months earlier, Theo could have saved herself a hell of a lot of heartbreak _and_ not lost the security deposit on her last apartment -- but she never asks about his. Sometimes he offers, but only rarely, and usually only to make a point or give an example. She feels like she's stepped over a line, here, and she doesn't like it.

But Dr. Dee doesn't seem to be offended. He's staring off into the distance, like he's trying to pick through what he's going to tell her, and finally he says, almost to himself, "Yes, you are smarter than that, aren't you." She's trying to figure out what he means by it, but he focuses in on her and smiles again, and this time the smile is fond. "Very well. I'll trust in your discretion, honey. Wouldn't want this to be gossip." 

Theo is more than a little startled by the endearment slipped in -- she's used to them from others, it's a Southern culture thing, but he never uses them with anyone -- but she nods. "I wouldn't -- I won't," she says. 

Dr. Dee nods again. "It's nothing sinister. I could just do without having our business spread everywhere. And I do know how all y'all gossip. Just as bad as the family, I swear." He shakes his head. "Anyway. Look at me, being all mysterious. Here's what I know. Cameron was looking to be just like his daddy, Air Force for life and all the way, and then he got caught up in some sort of -- well, nobody knows what he got caught up in, but he'd stop calling for weeks on end and when he came back he wouldn't mention where he'd been, and sooner or later they called Sassy and Everett and said that Cameron's plane had gone down somewhere cold and dangerous and they'd better come out fast to see him before he -- well. Before."

His eyes are distant, like he's seeing history, the way he gets when he looks at a bunch of artifacts or at dig photos and Theo _knows_ he's seeing the way people used those things, the way people lived there. "That was, oh, coming on four years back. And he got up, and he got himself back on his feet -- they called it a miracle, but I told you, boy's more stubborn than his momma. Then Thanksgiving two years ago -- while you were at That Woman's family's place --" Theo smiles, just a little; it's stopped hurting so much by now. "--he brought home ... well, you met him once. The one who looks like he isn't even old enough to shave. And we all liked him well enough, but Everett thought that boy was going to take off any minute when he realized what sort of life he'd gotten himself into, being a crippled man's legs. We all thought Everett was just being paranoid, until we woke up the day after Christmas and that boy was gone."

Theo winces. It's too familiar; that's how Janine left her, although in her case it had also involved some creative redecoration on the way out. "Anyway," Dr. Dee continues, "Carlos is right. You'll probably have some men from some agency or some branch of the service out to talk to you, as soon as they get around to it, and they'll want to know all sorts of nosy things about me and about Cameron and about that boy, and no, I have no idea why. Sassy thinks that Cameron didn't put down his service when he hung up his uniform, and that that boy was helping him somehow, but I'm pretty sure that's just his momma not wanting to believe the worst. Either way, yeah, somebody's really interested in my nephew and anyone who's so much as breathed near him in the past two years, and he won't tell any one of us just why, just that we shouldn't worry. It's all just questions, though. If you can live with that, you go ahead and take the job."

It all seems very cloak-and-daggerish, honestly, but Theo thanks him and goes away and thinks about it for a while. After a bit, she emails Cameron Mitchell back and proposes a two-week trial. And he emails her back in _under two minutes_ (does the guy have a computer connected to his _brain?_ ) and says it's a deal, and they figure out when's good in her schedule, and at her first session she discovers that AJ shuts right up for her when she straps him into the baby-sling and walks around the house singing all the old Greek lullabyes her papa used to sing her when she was little. And that's how she winds up as a thrice-weekly babysitter -- though Dr. Dee suggests she call herself a 'care provider' instead; says it sounds better, says that seventeen-year-olds can be babysitters but twenty-seven-year-olds are care providers -- in between all the _other_ things she's trying to get done this semester. She keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the mysterious Them that Carlos was talking about to show up and drag her off to some back room for an interrogation somewhere, but it never happens. She just keeps showing up when she's supposed to -- Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 3PM to 5PM, just after office hours -- and takes care of the baby.

The house is a lovely modest rancher in a pretty nice neighborhood. Cam's usually rushing out the door the minute she shows up -- she doesn't even see him _sit down_ for the first three weeks she's there, and that can't be good for him -- but he's always careful to make sure she knows she's welcome to any of the food in the fridge (and _somebody_ in this house cooks and bakes, and she's pretty sure he doesn't have a personal chef, so it's probably him) and that it's all right if she spreads her papers and laptop over the kitchen table to work. (He also says she can borrow any of the books in the house, and she's _tempted_ sometimes, the ones that aren't technical manuals that is, but she just plain old doesn't have _time_ for casual reading. After Dissertation.) And he pays _really well_. Better than tutoring in the writing lab would. Better than waiting tables, even, and at least this way she only has to cater to _one_ person at a time. 

He's very clear that he's only looking for someone to mind the baby, not someone to cook or clean or take on any additional housework, which she's grateful for, but she takes him at his word that she's allowed free reign of the kitchen and works up a batch of baklava one Friday, because there isn't enough room in her apartment's kitchen to turn _around_ and he has the nicest kitchen she's ever seen. And _of course_ he comes home a little early that day, before she can finish cleaning up after herself, too, which just _goes to show_. AJ took a dislike to _something_ and started yelling (she's not sure what; sometimes the kid wants something when he cries and sometimes he's yelling just to yell, and she's pretty sure this is one of the yelling-for-yelling's-sake times) and there's flour and phyllo dough _everywhere_ and she's pretty sure she's got honey in her _hair_. "Oh, God," Theo says, when she hears the back door being unlocked. "Look, I am _so sorry_ , I'll clean this up as soon as I can get him to _stop yelling_ \--"

But Cam's just standing there, leaning on his cane (dragged himself in, around the back door, the one with the zero slope entrance, and he looks wrung-out and in pain and _miserable_ and the last thing he probably wanted was to come home and find his kitchen looked like it had been _bombed_ , dammit). He draws in a breath, and Theo thinks he's going to yell, and then he just starts _laughing_.

"You have --" he says, lifting one hand to mime "something on your cheek", and Theo grabs a dishtowel and scrubs frantically, and Cam just keeps laughing. "C'mere, demon, you hush up," he says, picking up the baby and patting him on the back, and AJ cuts himself off in mid-wail, hiccups, and stares at Theo like he's trying to set her on fire. "I'll keep him quiet," Cam says. "You wrestle the dishes. And then write out the recipe, because it smells fabulous and I've never been able to find a good baklava recipe that doesn't come out tasting like lead. And if you don't have anywhere to be, I'll trade you half of the finished product for feeding you dinner."

And that's how they wind up with a standing Friday night dinner arrangement. She can't call it a date -- she's not into men, he might be into women but you couldn't tell it by her -- but he's sweet and he's friendly and he's a _damn_ good cook, and there's something about how he talks to her that makes her think he's not only lonely, but _scared_. About something he can't talk about, about something she doesn't know. At first they talk about the little things -- her classes and her research, his business and his family -- but by the end of February, she thinks they might be starting to be friends.

She thinks he could probably use a few friends.

It's the middle of March, just before spring break, when she's first reminded of what Carlos had said to her.

They're sitting at the kitchen table after dinner (her turn to cook, his turn to do the dishes, and AJ's admirably filling his role of providing the background noise; she's starting to find it _soothing_ for God's sake), both of them heads down and working, when the front doorbell rings. Cam looks up, and she'd _swear_ she saw the color drain right out of his face, saw sheer raw _panic_ there, but it's just an instant and then it's gone. 

"Let me," Theo says, when he reaches for his cane to push himself up. She bounces up before he can say yes or no -- it'd probably be no; she's learned not to make a big deal out of doing things for him, because it only leads to getting snarled at -- and goes to open the door.

It's two men -- one in a suit, one in a blue military uniform. The guy in the suit is younger, brown-haired, earnest-looking. The guy in the uniform has grey hair and a kind-looking face, but he's scowling. He's the one to speak. "We're looking for Cameron Mitchell."

Theo keeps a hand on the door, making sure it's only open enough for her to peek out of it. It's a defensive position, but the guy in the uniform makes her feel defensive, and she's not sure why. "Can I ask who's calling?"

"Best not to," Cam's voice comes from behind her, and she turns around to see him limping across the entryway to join her. She blinks, because for half a second, as he crosses the floor, he looks _dangerous_ , fierce and protective and _fucking pissed_ ; then she blinks again, and he's back to being just Cam. "It's all right, Theo. You can let them in. They're the good guys."

She steps back, out of the doorway, and tries to keep her voice even. "That implies that there's bad guys."

"There's always good guys and bad guys," the guy with the grey hair says. "The trick is figuring out which ones are which."

Cam comes up behind her. "It's okay," he says, softly, aimed (she thinks) for her ears alone. "It really is. I'm sorry. Do you mind --"

"Yeah," Theo says. "Let me just get my stuff. I'll get out of your way. I'll see you on Monday."

It's the most painfully awkward five minutes she can remember since the time she wound up seated in a lecture between two anthropologists who were in the middle of a five-year academic fistfight. While she stuffs exam papers into her backpack, checks one last time to make sure AJ is napping peacefully, Cam's two visitors are standing in the kitchen, staring at him (and him staring at them) like the next thing you know, it'll be pistols at dawn. Theo hesitates before leaving, but Cam tears his eyes away from Grey-Haired Guy and nods at her, with a smile, and she makes herself smile back.

The government guys are gone on Monday when she comes back. They don't talk about it. She debates, for a few seconds, mentioning it to Dr. Dee, but -- it's none of her business. It really isn't. If Cam wants his uncle to know what's going on, Cam will tell him.

That Friday, though, while she's sitting at the table playing got-your-foot with AJ in a babyseat sitting on the table itself, and Cam's brushing the honey-pineapple glaze over the chicken he's about to roast, he says, out of nowhere, "Does Uncle Al ever -- ask anything about me?"

Theo looks up, startled. "No," she says. "We don't -- I mean, I don't talk about people behind their backs. Anybody."

She's not sure what answer he was looking for, or why, but his shoulders slump a little bit. "'Preciate that," he says. "I just --" His eyes rake over her, and for a second she thinks he can see straight through her, and it makes her shiver. Dr. Dee can do that sometimes, look at you and all of a sudden you're positive he's reading you like an open book, but Cam's look is -- more focused. More intent. "You don't talk about your family. Not at all."

It has the sound of someone who's looking for answers, someone who's hurting, and that's what keeps her from getting upset at him for prying. "No," she says. "It's been over five years since I talked _to_ my family."

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, and it sounds automatic: the sound of someone who can't imagine not being close to his family. Or, no. The sound of someone who's imagining not being close to his family, and finding the thought horrifying, and trying not to let it show. "I just -- I mean, I'm not used to them thinking less of me for things that we just can't --"

He trails off. Theo winces. "I'm sorry," she says, right back to him. "Is it ... anything you can fix?"

"Maybe someday," Cam says. "Not for a while, though."

And then he changes the subject, and she goes along with the conversational diversion, and it isn't until she's driving home that night that she realizes: he'd said "things that _we_ can't", not "things that _I_ can't".

The missing boyfriend's stuff is still everywhere in the house. She's always thought that was weird. When Janine moved out, Theo had changed all the locks and then packed up everything she'd left behind and sent it to _Goodwill_ , forty-eight hours after _the incident_.

And she'd gone into this job thinking of it as just a job, and realized a little while later that Cam was starting to be her friend, and God damn it, she is _worried about her friend_.

She shoves the thoughts away, though. He'll either tell her or he won't. And if it is something big, something messy, something political -- well, he probably _can't_ tell her, and her mind's conjuring stories of childhood games of Spy vs. Spy and the fall of the Berlin Wall, which is one of the earliest times she remembers actually being _aware_ of world events, growing up, but she laughs at herself and tells herself not to be silly. Still. He doesn't owe her anything. Except $350 a week, first thing Monday morning, paid in cash and under the table. 

So Theo keeps her mouth shut, and she _finally_ finishes sorting all of her dig notes from Tell Hamoukar, and she carries on a vigorous email conversation with Dr. Reichel (who's being nice enough to give her authorship credit on one of the papers he's publishing about their findings, one of the _big_ ones, and she knows that's a favor to Dr. Dee, but dammit, she's proud it isn't a sinecure; she _contributed_ , and Dr. Reichel says he'd be happy to work with her in the future and that _means_ something). She grades papers, and she counsels undergrads, and she goes through the traditional late-March why-the-fuck-did-I-assign-them-a-major-research-paper angst. (Kay-Beth is much smarter; _she_ does all her tests as multiple choice.) And on Friday nights, she cooks for Cam or Cam cooks for her, and they work together at the kitchen table, and sometimes he uses her as a sounding board for some technical problem she only barely understands, but they don't _talk_ about what's bothering him. And she doesn't know how to bring it up and not sound like she's being nosy.

Then Thursday morning, in mid-April, Theo walks into the department and finds that everyone's cowering in their offices, because Dr. Dee is on the phone and _shouting_.

His door's shut, but everyone on the floor can hear him. His side of the conversation doesn't make much sense, though. Something about a nephew -- another nephew -- and a disgrace, or maybe something illegal, and Dr. Dee keeps sounding like he's hanging up the phone (or being hung up on) and starting over with a different listener. She can't tell who he's yelling at, or why he's so upset, and oh, God, she doesn't want to hear this but she can't _help_ it. People _across campus_ are probably wondering what's going on in the Archaeology department. And finally, after about half an hour of this -- nobody dares to poke their head into Dr. Dee's office and let him know that they can _hear him_ , and Theo is just debating sending him an email to let him know without having to go in there and _face_ him -- Dr. Dee opens the door to her office without knocking and levels a finger at her. 

"You," he snaps, and for a second he looks so much like her father looked when he was shouting at her that she shrinks back in her chair. He sees the reaction, makes a face at himself; she sees him trying to rein his temper in. "My idiot brother's idiot son has been brought up on charges, and I have to fly out to Colorado tonight to intercept Henry before he _kills the boy_. Can you take my classes for the rest of the week?"

"Of course," Theo says, thinking quickly -- trying to remember what the hell else he's teaching this semester and whether or not she has _any idea_ where they are in the syllabus. "Just leave me whatever you have that you want me to go over with them."

It doesn't take long for Dr. Dee to get her up to speed -- which is good, because apparently his flight leaves in two and a half hours and he still has to run back to his house and pack something -- and Theo's halfway through quick-skimming the chapter he wants her to cover with his seminar in Sumerian poetry tonight, just to refresh her memory, when she realizes that Dr. Dee's Monday-Wednesday-Friday section of Field Archaeology overlaps the time she's supposed to be at Cam's taking care of AJ.

"Oh, _hell_ ," she says, and picks up the phone to call and make her excuses.

Cam seems pretty shaken by her news. "I didn't hear --" he starts, and then stops himself. "Did he say who?"

"He said his brother Henry," Theo says, feeling _horrible_. She'd figured, when she called, that he would have already heard -- the family's gossip network could serve as a textbook case for Dr. Coelli's class in small-group information ecology -- but apparently Cam's been cut out of the information web, and her heart aches for him. "I didn't catch any other names. I'm sorry."

But there's silence on the other end of the line, and she realizes the sound she heard was the sound of him dropping the phone. When he picks it up again, he's swearing, over and over and over again. It takes him a second to get a grip. "Sorry," he says. "Sorry. I apologize for the language, I just --"

"It's okay," she says. "I know the words."

"No, I shouldn't -- I just -- _fucking hell_ ," Cam says. She can hear him taking a deep breath. "Okay. Thanks. I gotta go call Sa -- an old friend and ... see what this is. An' I gotta go call my neighbor and see if she can take the Mouth for me tomorrow so I don't have to bring him along to my appointment, and I can _hear_ you getting ready to apologize, and don't you dare. Okay. I can do this." 

It sounds more like he's trying to talk himself into believing what he's saying than him trying to reassure _her_ , though, and she wishes she could make it -- whatever 'it' is -- better. 

She takes a deep breath of her own. Just as she's getting ready to suggest that they cancel Friday night dinner -- it's not precisely that she'd feel wrong in going over to Cam's without the necessity of babysitting, but he sounds like the last thing he needs is another obligation -- he adds, sounding a little bit desperate, "Please tell me you're still coming over for dinner tomorrow night after your class. I need a conversation with somebody whose diapers don't need to be changed midway through the discussion."

It's only one of the major differences between the two of them -- he's an extrovert, she's an introvert -- and she will never understand (or even remember) the fact that he _likes_ being around people, having people around him. But he's her friend, and he needs her, so she says, "Sure. If it wouldn't be too much trouble. Email me and tell me if you need me to bring anything."

She winds up getting delayed, Friday afternoon, by two juniors in Dr. Dee's Field Archaeology section who are trying to rules-lawyer their grades in order to boost their transcripts for graduate school admission. When she finally arrives over at Cam's, she's tired, stressed, and _cranky_. She'd considered emailing or calling him and telling him she wouldn't be good company -- holing up in her room with her headphones on to drown out Stephen's action movies, with her books and her notes and the peace and quiet of people who have been dead for _thousands of years_ instead -- but she couldn't actually bring herself to do it. Not remembering the pain in Cam's voice yesterday. And sure enough, when he answers the door to her knock, he looks quietly, desperately, glad to see her. 

He also looks _wiped_ , like he hasn't slept a wink, like everything hurts. Physically _and_ mentally. "Hey," he says. "I know it's my turn to cook, but -- I don't suppose you'd mind if we call for delivery or something?" She can hear AJ screeching behind him; the baby's managed to hit a particularly piercing note. 

Whatever she was about to say dies on her lips, unborn. "Go sit down," she says, firmly, pushing past him (carefully; she's always so careful to keep from knocking him over, and she's always so awkward, never knowing if it's okay to ask about the cane or mention his injuries or even whether _looking_ at his legs is rude) and into the kitchen. "Or _lie_ down. I'll take care of things. It's okay."

"You don't have to --" he starts, then closes his eyes. She can see his lips moving, but she can't tell what he's saying. Talking to himself. "You've got your own shit," he says, after a second, to her. "I didn't ask you over so that you could take care of me. I don't want to be a burden. Hired you to babysit the kid, not the parent."

The implied statement there -- that she only cares about him because he pays her to -- spikes her temper; she grabs at it with both hands, because there's no use in _both_ of them being on edge. She folds her arms over her chest. "I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that," she says, calmly, and he has the good manners to look ashamed. "Sit your ass down in that chair and let me handle this."

He sits.

It's only a second to find where AJ is -- follow the sound of the shrieking -- and she finds him in the crib in his room (which, judging from the boxes and books everywhere, she's always thought was the spare room up until the baby's arrival). There are baby-slings strewn everywhere in the house; Cam won't take a single step while holding the baby, because he can't hold the baby in both arms and he doesn't want to risk dropping him, so there's always a sling nearby. 

She gets herself strapped in and picks AJ up. "Be quiet, you little monster," she croons, in Greek, soft and reassuring. (It's the sound that matters, but she does try to use Greek with him as much as possible; it's good for him to be exposed to as many languages as possible at an early age. She always has to be careful to remember to use Modern, not Classical.) "You'll give everyone a headache. Come on, sweetheart, shut up for me, we're going to go cook, you like the kitchen ..."

Through a combination of murmurs and reassurances, aided by a pacifer stuck in AJ's mouth -- Cam is not one of the parents who believes a pacifier is a breeding ground for dirt and germs and therefore to be avoided; she's seen him pick one up of the floor, dust it off on his shirt-tail, and use it to shut the baby up -- she eventually gets him quiet, if not particularly _calm_. She gets AJ stowed in the baby-sling, drapes the end of her ponytail over her shoulder so he has something to cling to with his chubby baby hands, and makes her way back to the kitchen to see whether Cam's taken her advice to sit.

He has; he's at the kitchen table, his head in his hands, a tumbler of _something_ at his elbow. It's half-full, and she doesn't know if he only poured himself a half-glass or poured a full one and drank half of it already. He looks up when she comes in. "Bless you," he says. "I'm sorry. He just would not shut up for me _all day_."

"He knows you're upset," Theo says. She's rewarded with a _look_ from Cam -- and oh, Cam's looks can go straight through her when he wants them too, fierce and piercing -- and she does her best to give him a _look_ of her own in return. She crosses the kitchen to the refrigerator, opens it. There's some ground beef defrosting on the second shelf, and she stoops to check the crisper drawer; he's the type who might have eggplant, she thinks, and sure enough, there is some. Moussaka it is. 

"You don't have to make dinner," Cam says, quietly, behind her. "Really. It's okay."

"I like cooking," Theo says, firm and unyielding. "And it's a bitch to cook for one, and my roommate won't eat anything I make, so shut up and let me cook."

It's hard to do food prep with a baby strapped to your chest, but AJ's in one of those moods where he'll start howling if she puts him down in a baby seat on the counter, so she makes do. She works in a quiet kitchen; the only sound is the occasional murmur from the baby. Cam doesn't say a word, and she's not going to prompt him. He just sits there and drinks his whiskey, and when he gets to the bottom of the glass, he pours himself another.

That's what makes her say something. She's seen him drink a glass or two of wine with dinner, but she's never seen him drinking hard liquor, and especially not this much of it; she's seen the bottles in the house, but she's never seen him touch them. She puts down the spoon and turns to him. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asks.

"No," he says. Drags a hand over his face. "Yes. No. Yes, but I can't. It's complicated. Really complicated. So goddamn complicated I don't have a single fucking clue where I'd start even if I could." He looks up at her. His eyes are miserable. "I miss him," he says, and his voice is miserable too. "I miss him _so fucking much_."

Theo's breath catches in her throat. For a second she doesn't know what to do, faced with the naked pain and longing in his voice. She can hear something there, something that she can't identify, something more than simple regret for might-have-beens. She stands there for a second, feeling out of place, feeling uncertain, not knowing what she can do to offer him comfort. Then she says _fuck it_ , crosses the kitchen, and awkwardly wraps one arm around him, trying not to crush the baby between them.

It's a shit angle. She's standing, and he's sitting, and she's three-quarters of a foot shorter than he is but she still has to lean over and besides, the baby's in the way. But his shoulders slump against her touch, and he breathes out and rests his forehead against the side of her breast, and he says, muffled against her t-shirt and the baby's side, "Sorry. It's just one fucking thing on top of another lately. I'm okay. I'm okay."

"It's all right if you're not," Theo says. She pats his shoulder, tentatively, feeling like nothing she can do will be the right thing. But they might be different in so many ways, but there are a few things they have in common. Relationships ending. Family problems. Loneliness, she supposes, and it must be ten times worse for him than it is for her, because he needs people ten times more than she does. So she fumbles for words of comfort. "I -- when my last girlfriend and I broke up, I was a wreck. For months. And I wasn't dealing with half the shit you're dealing with. It takes time."

He pulls back, after holding on for a few minutes more. "Yeah," he says, and she can tell she's said something wrong but she doesn't know _what_. "Yeah. You're right. I know you're right. I just have to give it time." 

Oh, God, she doesn't know what to _do_. But he's the type of person (she thinks) who won't mind giving her a little bit of guidance, so she says, "Tell me what I can do to help." 

That wrings a smile out of him. It wavers a bit, but it's a smile nonetheless. "Not much," he says. "Not unless -- Not much. It's okay. Just being here is a big help." He takes a deep breath, lets it out. "You pretty much have no idea how much. Come on. Let me give you a hand with dinner. I'll feel better if I'm doing something."

He drags himself up out of the kitchen table's booth, and he grabs his cane from where it was resting against the wall, and she thinks she can see his face twist when he has to reach for it, like he's reminded of all the things that have gone wrong in his life, all the things he has to put up with, day in and day out. She knows better than to try to tell him to sit back down, though. He wouldn't. Not when he gets like this.

"I'll slice the eggplant," he says, like the last five minutes haven't happened, and her heart breaks for him as she watches him limp, heavily, over to the counter to pick up the knife. His shoulders aren't stooped at all.


End file.
